Results tagged “tedrogers”

As Torontoist reported earlier today, media mogul Ted Rogers passed away early this morning. Today's ad features Rogers alongside his father, who was one of Canada's broadcasting pioneers.

Ted Rogers—father of the massive Rogers empire—is dead from heart failure. Rogers laid the groundwork for his company by buying FM radio station CHFI for a little under $100,000 in 1960, forming Rogers Cable T.V. Ltd. in 1967, co-founding Cantel—which he'd later buy out and turn into Rogers Wireless—in 1985, and snatching up media company Maclean Hunter Ltd. in 1994. A shrewd and aggressive salesman, and as such not one universally loved (but, to borrow a line from Arthur Miller, "with his pockets on he was very well-liked"), Rogers for better or worse defined and ruled over the Canadian telecommunications landscape more than anyone else. He was 75.

Many of us were looking forward to welcoming the Buffalo Bills to Toronto. The eight games they'll play here over the next five years could've been the perfect complement to our existing football diet of live Argonauts games and televised NFL matches. Now that the details have been announced, more than a few of us have been priced out of attending. The majority of tickets average into the $350 per game range, and are only available if you ante up for all eight games at once. As Dave Perkins laments in The Star, the arrangements clearly lay the groundwork for Ted Rogers and Larry Tanenbaum to bring the NFL to Toronto full-time. Granted, there's the unlikely possibility that Bills owner Ralph Wilson is using the games as leverage to extort further concessions from the taxpayers of Buffalo, but he's not exactly denying the possibility of eventual relocation. This is simply the latest chapter in Toronto's long-running soap opera love affair with "big league" American football. A couple past episodes in this drama are indicative of how this pursuit has evolved from quiet self-confidence to the fervent desire to be validated as a "big league" city.

Argos fans be very very scared. It seems that Toronto is on a shortlist of five cities that will get a regular-season NFL game next year. The game's success would be a good indicator of whether these cities would be suitable for future NFL expansion.

With Torontoist's past two "sports" entries being titled "Toronto Bike Posts Both Strong and Vulnerable" and "We've Got a Thing 'bout The Post-and-Ring" (the first installment of the two-part series on our city's bike posts), the Adorable Sports Writer feels like it's time to re-capture the floor.

Toronto Hydro is leapfrogging over cellphone companies and planning to offer citywide WiFi which means you can access Torontoist pretty much everywhere. Like on skating rinks, or parks or heck, even while you're driving (something we don't support and won't be liable for if you're stupid enough to do it). According to the Toronto Star story Ted Rogers is very very pissed off about the development. All we have to say is good, that guy deserves it. Have you seen TOist's cable and phone bill?!

From the moment Fido came onto the market they were perceived as a threat to the large margin, big profit cell phone carriers like Rogers, Bell, and especially Telus. The competition cause by Fido’s entrance into the market drove prices down and service quality up. If you’ve ever dealt with Rogers or Bell before, you already know that’s not their business plan. So when the unlimited local calling City Fido plan was released in Vancouver then Toronto, the other carriers decided they had enough and took action.

It cost six hundred million in taxpayer dollars to construct, but now just a decade and a half later the Skydome has been sold for the rock-bottom price of $25 million. This marks the third time the dumb-looking sports facility has exchanged hands, with the owner of the inhabiting Blue Jays, Rogers Media, taking over. The real estate alone has to be worth that money. Really, Ted Rogers should move the Jays back to Exhibition Stadium and sell the building that resembles a giant testicle to Donald Trump.